LITEEAKY AND DOMESTIC LIFE. 



323 



coaches every alternate day to Thornhill ; from each of which places 

 we are but fifteen miles distant, with a fair road, and plenty of 

 vehicles from both. Could we have warning, we would send you 

 down two horses ; of wheel carriages (except carts and barrows) 

 we are still unhappily destitute. Nay, in any case, the distance, 

 for a stout Scottish man, is but a morning walk, and this is the love- 

 liest December weather I can recollect of seeing. But we are at 

 the Dumfries post-office every Wednesday and Saturday, and 

 should rejoice to have the quadrupeds waiting for you either there 

 or at Thornhill, on any specified day. To Gordon, I purpose 

 writing on Wednesday ; but any way I know he will follow you, 

 as Hesperus does the sun. 



" I have not seen one Blackwood, or even an Edinburgh news- 

 paper since I returned hither ; so what you are doing in that un- 

 paralleled city is altogether a mystery to me. Scarcely have tidings 

 of the Scotsman-Mercury duel reached me, and how the worthies 

 failed to shoot each other, and the one has lost his editorship, and 

 the other still continues to edit,* Sir William Hamilton's paper 

 on Cousin's Metaphysics I read last night ; but, like Hogg's Fife 

 warlock, ' my head whirled roun', and ane thing I couldna mind.' 

 O curas hominum f I have some thoughts of beginning to pro- 

 phesy next year, if I prosper ; that seems the best style, could one 

 strike into it rightly. 



" Now, tell me if you will come, or if you absolutely refuse. At 

 all events, remember me as long as you can in good- will and affec- 

 tion, as I will ever remember you. My wife sends you her kindest 

 regards, and still hopes against hope that she shall wear her Goethe 

 brooch this Christmas, a thing only done when there is a man of 

 genius in the company. 



" I must break off, for there is an Oxonian gigman coming to 

 visit me in an hour, and I have many things to do. I heard him 

 say the other night that in literary Scotland there was not one such 

 other man as ! — a thing in which, if would do him- 

 self any justice, I cordially agree. Believe me always, my dear 

 sir, yours with affectionate esteem, Thomas Carlyle." 



* One of the pleasant little incidents of those agreeable times, when it was considered necessary 

 that the editors of the Scotsman and the Caledonian Mercury should exchange shots to vindicate 

 a fine-art criticism. The principals were Mr. Charles Maclaren and Dr. James Browne. The 

 41 hoBtile meeting 1 ' took placo at seven o'clock in the morning, on the 12th of November, 1S'29. 



